As the freight industry becomes more and more competitive with freight carriers running on paper thin margins, it is increasingly the case that obscure rules and fees are being created in an effort for carriers to maintain a competitive price structure while remaining profitable. Previously a shipper of freight would need to be intimately familiar with the many rules for each individual carrier including the various methods of determining shipment characteristics such as density, linear footage, volume, and when each method were to be used, and whether any of those characteristics would cause the carrier to reject the freight or charge an exorbitant fee to move it or if additional charges simply applied. Without this system it is impractical—bordering on impossible—to choose the absolute cheapest carrier for a specific shipment in a specific lane and not be impacted by unknown surcharges and fees by the carrier after they've moved a shipment.
Traditionally, a shipper will single-source their freight to a major national carrier or to regional carriers based on the shipment destination. Some shippers use generic rating systems that provide pricing for multiple carriers based only on the total weight and class of the shipment without accounting for the shipment density or dimensions or other rules that are less common or very obscure but cause a shipper to incur expensive surcharges. Still other shippers rate a shipment on each carrier's website or using a small piece of software provided by each carrier which contains the pricing and discounts negotiated with the carrier. These systems lack any kind of sophisticated decision-making logic beyond the standard process of using the weight and class of a shipment to determine a rate based on the origin and destination and the base charge, minus any discount negotiated, plus the cost of a fuel surcharge and any special service charges such as residential delivery or a lift gate.